The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-12-10
sentiment ouickly vanished when he

sentiment quickly vanished when he witnessed the reception the poor young man received. It was of such a crushing and soul-annihilating char acter that, at the end of five minutes, poor Mir. Walnut took his departure in an utterly limp condition, and went and smoked pale cigar on the steps of a bathing machine until the next train left for London.
 Tom could not help feeling elated by the preference which the Vaughans, by implication, thus manifested for himself; but the expression ot indig- nation uttered by Miss Mabel, as we'll as her parents. at Mir. Walnuts pre- sumption, considering that he was only something in the city," made Tom more dejected than ever. MT. Walnut's fate appealed to him as a frightful warning of the treatment which he must expect when the time arrived for making the inevitable rev. elation about his own business occu- patton. No wonder that he was in- cl;nod to shirS tho ordeal, and, as his devotion to Miss Mabel increased, so also did his diffidence and awe of her parents.
 But poor Tom regretted very bit terly his fatal procrastination a day or two later, when an ominous incl dent occurred. He was lounging in the doorway of his hotel one afternoon when wagonette passed in front of him, laden with a rowdy party of ex- cursionists from the neighboring place of Stargate. To Toms horror, some body waved his hand at him with n boisterous salutation, and he discov- cred that he was being hailed by Jack Brace, a lively young haberdasher, whose place of business was within a stones throw of his own. Jack, at tired in the approved style of Star gate, wearing sandshoes and a yacht ing cap, looked the personification of jovial vulgarity. Tom did not care for Jack Brace at the best of times ; for Jack. who had shop in main thoroughfare, would dress his own window every morning without the least regard to the feelings of his friends, and was, in short, an individ- ual entirely devoid of delicacy and re- finement. At that moment, and in Southdore of all places ill the world, Tom felt that he was absolutely loath- some for to be seen with him would be fatally compromising, while the chances were that Jack would blurt out some professional question about trouserings or the new winter patterns loudly enough to be heard by any one standing within quarter-mile radius.
 The moment, therefore, that he caught sight of Jack, and perceived him motioning to the driver of the wagonette to stop, Tom turned and fled through the hotel to the outbuild- ings at the back, where he spent a miserable half-hour in an empty horse- box. Tom was conscious that his retreat was humiliating, and even mean, but he positively could not face his Southdore friends with Jack by his side, not to mention the risk oi coming across the Vaughans when i'll such equivocal company.
 After half an hour Tom ventured from his hiding place and stealthily made his way to his bedroom, to ar ray himself for an afternoon prome- made with the Vaughans. He felt very much shaken by what had happened for besides being ashamed of himself, the episode only served to emphasize the fatal obstacle which existed to the fulfillment of his hopes. However, he pulled himself together and started forth, after first glancing cautiously up and down the road, to see if there were any sign of Jack Brace. But alas for the vanity of human fore sight! He had scarcely set foot upon the green when he nearly flat on his back, from sheer dismay a: coming face to face with that dreadful Jack Brace, walking with and talking very soberly and respectfully to no less a person than Colonel Vaughan himself.
 Tom turned from red to white and from white to red again, as he stood rooted to the spot, overwhelmed with confusion and amazement, until he suddenly realized that he had not been perceived. To hurry on one side in hope of escaping observation was a quickly executed man9uvre; but that unlucky moment of hesitation and un- certainty had defeated his object, for, at the same instant, Jack Brace caught sight of him and uttered shout which caused Colonel Vaughan to look up with a start. Tom, however, was too agitated to stop, 30 he hastened away, aimlessly, over the cliffs, and never ventured to retrace his steps un- til he discovered that he had left Southdore a couple of miles behind him.
 Poor Tom was dreadfully upset and depressed, for it was impossible to doubt that Jack Brace would reveal eyerythiuo to Colonel VauOhap If he